Thursday round-up

Posted Thu, June 27th, 2013 10:12 am by Matthew Lanahan

The Court issued the last three decisions of the Term yesterday, bringing the total decisions this week to eleven. Coverage and commentary have focused on the decisions in the two same-sex marriage cases, United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry. Kali Borkoski has a rundown of this blog’s coverage here; Dan Stein and Sam Barr also provided afternoon and evening round-ups of coverage, respectively.

Coverage of the same-sex marriage cases comes from Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal; Kenneth Jost at Jost On Justice, and commentary comes from Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institute. PrawfsBlawg has extensive coverage and commentary on the rulings, including from Howard Wasserman (here, here, and here) Rick Garnett, Rick Hills (here and here), Will Baude, and Cynthia Godsoe. Ben Goad and Julian Hattem of The Hill’s RegWatch report that, in response to yesterday’s ruling in Windsor, the president has ordered administration officials to review federal statutes and regulations. Nicole Huberfield at HealthLawProf Blog argues that the decision in Windsor will have far-reaching effects for healthcare. Other coverage of the decisions comes from Sahil Kapur of Talking Points Memo, who covers both DOMA (Windsor) and Proposition 8(Perry); Ogletree Deakins; and Joseph Henchman and Nick Kasprak of the Tax Foundation, who focus on the tax implications of the Windsor decision.

Justice Scalia’s dissent in Windsor garnered significant commentary: Jeremy Leaming of ACSblog argues that it conflicts with his decision to join the majority in Shelby County v. Holder, issued on Tuesday; PrawfsBlawg has commentary on the dissent from Dan Markel and Howard Wasserman, while Sahil Kapur of Talking Points Memo catalogs what he describes as the Justice’s “top ten rage quotes.”

At NPR (audio), Nina Totenburg covers Tuesday’s decision in Shelby County, in which the Court held that the coverage formula used to determine what state and local governments are subject to the preclearance requirement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Other coverage comes from Robert Rubin at California Lawyer and Sahil Kapur of Talking Points Memo.

At PrawfsBlawg, Eduardo Penalver discusses the Court’s decision in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, considering why, “if Nollan/Dolan is just an application of unconstitutional conditions doctrine, the Court seem[s] so eager (desperate?) to put the underlying (unconstitutional) demand within the ‘takings’ box?” Jeremy P. Jacobs of E&E Publishing also reports on Koontz.

Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to Representative F. James Sensenbrenner et al., who filed an amicus brief in support of the respondents in Shelby County v. Holder; the firm’s Tejinder Singh was among the counsel on an amicus brief filed by international human rights advocates in support of the respondents in Hollingsworth v. Perry; the firm’s Kevin Russell was among the counsel on an amicus brief filed by former senators in support of Edith Windsor in United States v. Windsor.

If you have (or know of) a recent article or post that you would like to have included in the round-up, please send a link to roundup [at] scotusblog.comso that we can consider it.

Upcoming Oral Arguments

3/31Kimble v. Marvel Enterprises, Inc. Whether the Court should overrule Brulotte v. Thys Co., which held that “a patentee’s use of a royalty agreement that projects beyond the expiration date of the patent is unlawful per se”.

4/20Johnson v. United States Whether possession of a short-barreled shotgun is a violent felony, leading to a longer prison term as a career criminal.

4/21McFadden v. United States A federal prosecutor’s duty to prove that a suspect knew that a substance was an illegal substitute for a banned drug.

4/22Horne v. Department of Agriculture The federal government’s duty to pay raisin growers for an order requiring removal of part of a year’s crop from the market to stabilize prices.

On Monday afternoon Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer testified before the House Appropriations Committee. The purpose of the hearing was to discuss the Court’s budget for the next fiscal year and the federal judiciary, but the legislators also took full advantage of the occasion to touch on other topics as well.